Becoming Lady Luck
by sonyat
Summary: The story of Senju Tsunade as told through the girl reborn into her. "Tsunade: the Narutoverse's most renowned medic-nin with strength beyond measure. The woman cursed to lose those dear to her. The woman destined to become one of the Legendary Sannin and Fifth Hokage. I'm not sure if I can be that woman. Do I owe it to the people of Konoha to try?" Self-Insert OC/SI OC.


**A/N:** The only thing I can give you at the start of this one is: **SPOILERIFIC! All current and future manga chapters are liable to be spoiled in this story! If you are following the anime and want no spoilers, turn back now!**

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**Becoming Lady Luck**

**Cosmic Chance**

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My name is—that name doesn't matter anymore. No one wants to hear about that name. You want to hear about my new name, right? This is the story, the beginning of how I came to be named Senju Tsunade.

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_Dying is awful, I fear death, I don't want to die_; those are the kinds of things most people say or so I've been led to believe. Lying in a hospital bed unable to move, see, or barely breathe, I was disinclined to agree with them. Unlike most people I welcomed death. I was ready for it. Being stuck with more tubes and needles than any sci-fi movie I'd ever watched and drowning in my own fluids, I could only hope death would find me soon.

It would be some time longer before it would. My parents heavily disagreed with turning off my life-support – I was their precious hard-conceived only child – something that horrified me at the time. I never wanted to end up in a state like this, artificially living through machines! I would never forgive them for keeping me alive in such a manner against my express wishes…

I would try my hardest to rip the awful things out of me but my fingers would merely twitch. My parents took that as a good sign, that I could come out of it, that I would miraculously sit up to live another day. They took the trembling of my eyebrows and the few frustrated tears that fell from my eyes as a sign that I was a fighter, that I wanted to keep going.

How wrong they were. It was the last thing I wanted. I suppose I've never been a fighter. Maybe that's why I was in that hospital bed in the first place. To me, that's why the storybook heroes exist. Wizards, knights, angels, soldiers, samurai, ninjas – and those were my favourite, the ninjas.

In my youth – before the sickness had eaten away at me and left me bedridden and gasping for breath – I'd discovered the manga, Naruto. The world of Naruto fascinated me from the awe-inspiring power of the Tailed-Beasts to the various ninjas' ability to control and shape the elements at their whim. What I enjoyed most about it was the titular character himself, who overcame everything despite the odds, who had the strength to keep going no matter what happened to him. I wished I could be like that. I wanted _that_.

I wanted _power_. I wished I could have something like that.

My love of Naruto was something I hid (before having to quit school due to the crippling illness, I'd been the shy, quiet "nerd"; hiding my interests came naturally to me) so it was a surprise the day my mother started reading the Naruto chapters I'd missed to me. Apparently my secret was not so well-kept. That or she went through my computer, something that infuriated my helpless self.

Regardless, I couldn't be angry at her for long – while I was comfortable with the idea of my death, she was far from it. I couldn't begrudge her for something as petty as going through my computer. So I listened to her, rapt, as she tried her best to read through the Fourth Shinobi World War. She even made a point to give the characters different voices. I had to admit it was a fine effort. I listened to her each week as the chapters came out, the only thing in my dimming existence that gave me some joy and excitement. The five Kage fighting Edo Madara was my mother's best and last performance.

As all things end, so too did I. It came one night not unexpectedly. Somewhere in my soul I felt it creep under my door and along the floor, slithering up my bed and over me. Death, here, at last. _Thank you_, I wanted to say as my consciousness faded despite the mechanical interference trying to force me to cling to life. It should have been the end, it should have been nothing.

But it wasn't.

I'll give Death that there was a sense of nothingness but I didn't appear to be quite gone. I was…_floating?_ in nothingness. The floating sensation eventually became a tightening one. It tentatively scared me. Why? Because something kept telling me it was alright, it was fine to be just where I was. It was the only thing that saved me from transitioning into full-blown hysterics – not that I was sure I could, given my lack of form (or so I thought). Was I a ghost? I didn't know what was going on, how could I have? I wasn't sure how long I existed like that for. Suddenly something changed—

It was like someone flicking a light on and off. One second I was there in that dark, constricting place, the next I was blinking into a blurry unrecognizable world – I later learned that had been my brain's self-defense mechanism; _who actually wants to remember being born?_ I couldn't hear the steady and continuous **beep beep beep** of the machines or smell the tang of hand sanitizer. Where was I? I blinked blearily again, trying to clear my vision. It didn't work.

Arms shifted around me – wait, what _what_? How could someone possibly be holding me like this? I'm an Amazon of a woman!

"_She's not even crying_," someone, a man, remarked in a foreign language, rather upbeat with a hint of confusion. Was that Japanese? What the hell?

"_Of course not, Kawa!_" the woman holding me said. I instantly fell in love with her voice. I tried to reach out to touch her and ask her who she was. Imagine my surprise when it was nothing but odd babble. I heard a few voices coo at my strange noises. Why couldn't I speak properly? "_She's my daughter after all~!_" the woman declared, soft lips kissing my head.

Why was I so small? What's going on here? I lay there limply as the people in the room chattered in Japanese around me, trying to puzzle out what had happened. What a weird atmosphere I'd entered. They were all so painfully cheerful… Is the afterlife really like this? My skin felt oddly itchy, like something was simmering beneath it. I squirmed a little in the woman's arms.

"_Ehh, don't be like that Takara! She's my daughter too! Look at her eyes! She has my eyes!_" I was lifted from the woman's comforting hold – was Takara her name? – by the man speaking. I felt his warm breath on my face as he carefully hoisted me to eye-level, cradling my head in his giant calloused hand. I couldn't make out his face with my fuzzy sight but I could tell he had darker skin and unnaturally bright red hair for how much the blobs of colour stood out. I wasn't sure what his name was yet.

"_Not at all, silly husband! Look at how light they are! Her eyes are definitely more like mine! And her hair is blonde like mine!_" Takara argued. I could already tell she was the kind of woman who spoke with her hands.

What were they saying? I couldn't understand a word of it.

"_You're wrong!"_ the man holding me argued back with her, "_I can see hints of red in it! She's going to have beautiful Uzumaki hair!_"

W-what? Did he just say 'Uzumaki'? Like Uzumaki as in Naruto? It was hard to hear with whatever was wrong with me but I'd understood that well enough. Why couldn't I see or hear properly? You'd think death would afford me a pass on physical afflictions at this point. Were the people taking care of me fans of Naruto as well?

"_Now, now,_" a second woman I couldn't see said. The authority in her dignified voice was evident. She deftly plucked me out of the redheaded man's grasp and rocked me gently. I liked her immediately. Maybe she could calm these two crazy people down. "_It doesn't matter which one of you she takes after more, Kawarama, Takara. She'll make you proud all the same. As for her lack of crying, be grateful._" She had the man's red hair. She sounded kind. I could hear the smile in her words.

The man whose name I now thought to be Kawarama, laughed, "_Sorry, sorry! We're just getting carried away is all, Mother_!"

"_Ah yes, please forgive_—"

Slowly I began to fall asleep even as the commotion around me continued. Was I somehow not dead? Were my memories of dying and the tight space all a dream? Was I on some funky drugs that were causing some kind of mind-body disconnect along with hallucinations? I didn't think that should have been possible with how clear my mind was.

I had nearly fallen asleep when a sudden bang woke me out of my hazy half-slumber and the excitement of the three giant nurses caring for me increased. It seemed another person had arrived.

"_Look, look, Father! It's your first granddaughter!_" Kawarama exclaimed proudly.

I can only describe the noise that followed as some sort of high-pitched "squee-ing" that sounded like it had come from a man. I was promptly snatched from the arms of the lovely woman holding me and cuddled by a new person who showered me with sloppy kisses. I squawked, confused. Why was this guy all up in my space?

"_Hashirama!_" the calm lady scolded at the sound of my whining.

…Hashi-what?

"_Mito, look at our cute Tsunade! Isn't she so small! You named her Tsunade, right?_"

Tsunade…? This can't be what I think it is. No way. I'm not a baby!

"_Tsunade for girl!_" Takara confirmed.

I think the higher powers were listening when I made my wish. _Why me_? Please god let this be one huge cosmic joke! There's no such thing as reincarnation! There's no such thing as Naruto—

"_She'll grow up to be a strong kunoichi,_" Kawarama – is this my father?! – said with incredible pride.

The man holding me nuzzled my tiny face and said, "_Hello little Tsunade-hime! I'm your grandfather!_"

Uzumaki? Hashirama? Mito? _Kunoichi_?! _**Tsunade**_?!

I stared into the blurry expanse of his face squished against mine for a second before bursting into horrified tears and screaming at the top of my lungs.

Judging from his reaction, which seemed similar to mine, I think I offended him.

"_I told you to be grateful,_" I heard Mito say wryly somewhere in the background as my new parents fretted and Hashirama attempted to get me to stop crying to no avail.

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It would turn out to be that it wasn't a joke. The universe really had been listening. I really was Tsunade, last Heiress of the Senju, Konoha's Slug Princess, the world's most renowned medic-nin and strongest kunoichi, one of the Legendary Sannin and Fifth Hokage. Well, I wasn't a majority of those yet, only the first really.

Frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to be.

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**A/N:** A Tsunade self-insert. What the hell am I smoking? Kawarama is named after the first of Hashirama's brothers that died. I'm aware this was a pretty short chapter but it's only the intro! I'll work on making the next one between 3-6k. I find baby stuff so hard to write. For anyone who is WTF'ing at the title, please don't tell me Tsunade is known as the Legendary Sucker. I know that, lol.

Shameless plug: if you like SIs, I currently have two others posted, a Rin SI and an OC SI. Give 'em a read if you'd like.

Reviews are greatly appreciated! Tell me what I'm doing right, tell me what I'm doing wrong, tell me what you want to see more of! Thanks!


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